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4/29/2011

Well we sorta have internet again. The big computer isn't really hooked up yet, just Mom's laptop. Dad will get it all figured out when he comes home, though. Can't use any of my pictures though. :-( Sad.
We're kind of settled in now. School is dragging dreadfully, and I'm terribly sick of it. School should not exist when there's nice weather outside. It finally is nice, too. It seems like it's been raining for-ev-er!
Today is Mom's birthday! A couple of days ago, I asked Jason if he knew Mom's birthday was close. His eyes got really big and he said no! But we need to talk about it! So he convinced Mom to drop us all off at Wal-mart to buy her birthday presents, and he's super excited. I don't know if he's expecting Mom to share her birthday present with him, or not. Probably not, I just realized he's kind of picky about (shall I whisper?) things with chocolate and nuts in them! I'm not though...... =)
*Big Sigh* Isn't algebra just a crime in April? *Sigh again* Bye, I'm going to go hide from it...

4/26/2011

Today was piano class. We have only two classes left, and then finals, which sounds very ominous to little homeschooled me. =/ Probably won't be that bad though, after all it's piano not algebra or something like that. Sam is unhappy because we have to do scales, but I kinda like them.
We're over at the little house now, working on the floor. Mom's sanding, and I guess I will have to take my turn soon. It smells terrible because of the stain and sawdust, and my nose itches! We brought the dogs over, and they are having fun. They probably won't be happy when they have to go back to town. They've been pretty good, though. If they start barking at night, we tell them no, and shut them up, and they seem to have figured it out. Once I was still awake at eleven, and heard them barking, so I went out and shut them up, and scared Mom half to death, cause she didn't know who was downstairs. Good thing Dad just had a flashlight and didn't conk me on the head or something. Lol!

At this point you have to stop reading for twenty minutes before you go on. jk. I had to take my turn sanding. If you want to pause for effect you can, but I won't make you. Pretend you have sawdust in your hair and up your nose though. =) Moving on...

How is everyone liking the weather? It's not too bad here, although I've heard plenty about flooding and tornados and dams bursting. It has rained and thundered every night and kept me awake, though.
Well, that's all I have to say at the moment. All I'm doing lately is moving stuff around and walking the dog and sanding floors and that kind of thing, so I'm not too interesting. Soon we should be settled in though. I hope!

4/24/2011

I'm back, and this time I remembered my camera! That's a good thing... =) Right now Dad is sanding the wood floors, here in the "little house". They need a new finish, so we are doing that, among other things, before we get this up on the market.

When we came home, after being at our old home (yes, it's confusing!) Piper and I took a walk around the neighborhood. We ran into a couple of dogs, behind fences, and otherwise, but mostly we managed without mishap. There was a little dog named Ginger, though, a third Piper's size, who almost got in a fight with Piper, but her owner jumped off the lawnmower and got her, and we moved on quickly. =)

This is my Piper-doggie. Isn't she beautiful? I love her so much, even if she is hyperactive and gives me troubles. =) So far both dogs have been pretty happy at the new house. Piper's been remarkably good, considering all the stress and change, and the things I was worried about aren't even issues. She's walked very nicely on her leash, and she seems to have got over her fear of stairs, and trotted right up to my room after me. She even snuck through an open door and visited me without an invitation. It was rather startling to have her suddenly show up like that. =)

Here's Pookie. She refused to hold still for my camera, and so it serves her right if she gets silly pictures of herself posted on my blog. =) Did you know her name is actually Phoebe? I nearly always call her Pookie, though, so I almost forget. A while ago, Sam was protesting that I always called her Pookie, and said I ought to stop, because she was growing up. I told him she was always going to be a Pookie-type, no matter how big or old she gets, and he had to agree, cuz she's such a fat, silly, babyish type. But that's okay, it's prolly why we love her so much.
Well, don't know when I'll be back, although we should be here at the internet house fairly often. =) Tomorrow we start school again, which I'm not happy about. We took the week off to move, so we're a little behind. I'm afraid I'm not near done for this year, but I want to be so bad!

Well, we are here at the "little house" visiting our internet. =) Or at least, that's what I'm doing. The rest are doing industrious things like vacuuming. I don't know when we'll switch the internet to the other house, but I hope soon, because I am missing my blog. =) I think we officially live in the new house now, seeing as we sleep and eat there. The dogs are with us too, now. Piper and I went on our first walk on the leash around the neighborhood, and she behaved pretty well, thank goodness! I like the neighborhood a lot, it is peaceful and quiet, with trees and big yards, and nice people. =) Someone is always out mowing! Dad has talked some to the next-door-neighbor, and come to find out, they have a boy and a girl around Sam and my ages, and they're homeschooled! I haven't met them yet, but it's interesting to think about. Could be cool if we make some new friends, huh? Today I taught Sunday-school for Patty, because she's in Michigan. It was very awkward and un-fun, because only one girl came, and she didn't talk or anything! And I'm not that good at talking myself. It would have been sooo much more easier if I had a couple of rowdy boys instead. I know how to deal with that! =) Oh well, I have a lot of miniature chocolate Easter bunnies left over! =) Well, I better go. We're probably headed back home in just a little bit here. I am really kicking myself for not bringing my camera, cause I can't upload my pics when I don't have them. Next time, though... =)

4/21/2011

This is my new room. =) It's actually pretty hard to get pictures of a whole room! Hopefully you can get an idea, though. There's no mattress on the bed yet, and the ceiling needs painting and the carpet is crap, but I love it anyway. =) Eventually we'll get a double bed so this can double as a guest room. For now, we split my old bunk-bed in half for Sam and me.

It looks like there's only one brown bottle on the windowsill, in this pic, because so much light is coming in. I love having two windows, and the windowsills are gorgeous! There so wide you could put practically anything on them. All of the bedrooms are this color. It's not what I want permanently, but I can definitely live with it for a couple months.

See what I mean about the windowsills? It makes me want to go antique and thrift store shopping to find little things to fill it with, but for now it makes a good place to store bottles and teacups. =)

Well tomorrow is The Moving Day of Them All. With capitals. =) A couple of guys from church are coming to help move all the big furniture, and I think tomorrow will be our first night sleeping at the house. We had some issues with plumbing and the sewer, but I think Dad figured it out. Thank goodness! Anyway, better go. Mom is packing up the kitchen now, and she'd probably like me to help. ;-)

4/19/2011

A croquet mallet, an old golf ball, and some random plastic flag make a golf course, in Jason's opinion.

I'm not sure how much he knows about golf, especially since I know nothing, but he yelled "Fore!" when he got it into the hole. Lol.

Here is my bedroom furniture and the dining room bookcase going to the new house. I miss my bed! At least I still have a mattress...

We took a load of furniture over last night, and now pretty much all my stuff is transferred to the new house, and I am starting to organize my new bedroom, which I <3!! When it's clean and organized I will show you pictures of it. Today we did Mom's room, and the boy's room. I think Dad is eventually going to get some guys to help with the real big stuff, and we should be moved in by the end of this week. I'm so excited! =)

4/17/2011

Mom's back! We slipped out right at the end of the church service, and went to pick her up at the airport in Memphis. Fortunately we only had to circle around three times before she came out. I remember once we had to pick up Dad and Sean at the airport, and we went around nearly a hundred times. It was awful.
Mom brought lots of goodies for us. =) A whole lot of random stickers and other things from (great) Aunt Helen, and earrings and stuff from Aunt Shayna. Well earrings for me, and other stuff for the boys. =)
We're all really glad Mom's back. Very soon we start to move! I think we're planning on moving it one room at a time. We didn't really box anything up, cause it's only around ten minutes away.
The cold front is gone, thank goodness, and everything is getting into the habit of staying green. =) Isn't it lovely when winter is over?!

4/16/2011

Well! We have just completed a whole-house cleanup! Everything is swept and scrubbed and picked up, and will look very nice when Mom comes home tomorrow. Aren't we good children? =) I asked Sam, and he said, no, we're horrid and diabolical, but eventually even he had to admit that we're wonderful. Of course...I'm not promising that everything is spic and span. For instance, Ben confided in hushed whispers that he thinks Mom is going to be shocked when she walks in her bedroom unless Dad is going to clean it up. Not likely. And then... there is my own living quarters. Odd, I've been very industrious and hard-working when it comes to the whole house, but when it comes to my bedroom, I find myself quite unwilling to take it on. Enough talk of housecleaning, though...
Grandma left after lunch yesterday, which was very sad, but we managed to make it for a couple of hours till Dad came home. We had leftover pizza, and a very, very long science discussion that went from DNA to the digestive system, to various painkillers such as aspirin, Tylenol, Ibuprofen, and their various uses and effects on human beings. And when I say very long, I mean Dad practically launched into Biology teacher mode. You'd almost think he missed teaching science to highschool kids, but Nah, airplanes are way cooler, right? It was actually interesting though, and I surprised myself with how much I remembered from Biology last year. Sometimes... well most of the time, I tend to forget that I am actually smart. Lol. Odd, but true.
Besides that, we watched Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, and several episodes of Rocky and Bullwinkle. Not as many as today though. I declare, you'd think that we think Rocky and Bullwinkle is the best ever the way we've been watching it, but nothing could be further from the truth. ;-)
Nothing much else has happened, except we had a hot dog roast for lunch. Mom's coming home tomorrow, so that's something we're all happy about. =) Things somehow are a little more held-together when she's here. =)
That's all I have to say, so here's some pictures...

Roads go ever on and on,
Over rock and under tree,
By caves where sun has never shone
By streams that never find the sea;
Over snow by winter sown,
And through the merry flowers of June,
Over grass and over stone,
And under mountains in the moon.

Goblin Feet
J.R.R. Tolkien

I am off down the road
Where the fairy lanterns glowed
And the little pretty flitter-mice are flying:
A slender band of gray
It runs creepily away
And the hedges and the grasses are a-sighing.
The air is full of wings,
And of blundery beetle-things
That warn you with their whirring and their humming.
O! I hear the tiny horns
Of enchanted leprechauns
And the padded feet of many gnomes a-coming!

O! the lights! O! the gleams! O! the little tinkly sounds!
O! the rustle of their noiseless little robes!
O! the echo of their feet- of their happy little feet!
O! their swinging lamps in little starlit globes.

I must follow in their train
Down the crooked fairy lane
Where the coney-rabbits long ago have gone,
And where silvery they sing
in a moving moonlit ring
All a-twinkle with the jewels they have on.
They are fading round the turn
Where the glow-worms palely burn
And the echo of their padding feet is dying!
O! it’s knocking at my heart-
Let me go! O! let me start!
For the little magic hours are all a-flying..

O! the warmth! O! the hum! O! the colours in the dark!
O! the gauzy wings of golden honey-flies!
O! the music of their feet- of their dancing goblin feet!
O! the magic! O! the sorrow when it dies.

4/15/2011

So this is not a very good picture, because the light was awful (It stormed last night, and is still gloomy), and because I couldn't use my flash because of the mirror. Also I have mud on my toes, because I had to run out in the yard to rescue Jason's butterfly net from Pookie. Maybe you didn't notice that, though. Anyway, there's a vague idea of what it looks like. I still have to hem it, but that's pretty much all. Have to go now, it's lunch time. After lunch Grandma is leaving, which is very,very sad; but we will survive the weekend with Dad, and Mom will be home on Sunday. See ya!

4/14/2011

The dress is coming along! I'm not sure if it will be done by the time Grandma leaves, but I think we just might be almost done with the bodice. I can probably do the skirt myself. (Probably!) It turned out to be a bit of a difficult pattern, and Grandma says I'll be able to sew anything by the time we're through... The weather's been lovely, and everything is really turning green now. There's a few ugly little mosquitoes showing up, which I am not happy about! No sweltering weather yet, though. The boys are dyeing Easter eggs, and I'm making one too. It's going to be purple, mostly because that's the only color available. Nobody wanted it. Hmm. We were all glad to see Dad again yesterday. He brought Jason and Ben some little wind-up Easter toys. Ben's broke right off, but they fixed it. Later all of them were watching Rocky and Bullwinkle on Mom and Dad's bed. Grandma and I were sewing, and no one came to bother us for an hour at least! Lol. We had to go to a piano lesson again today. It was a pretty boring lesson, and it gave me a headache. The Easter egg people are now complaining because the dye won't work. I'll go check on my purple egg, and then I'll be back with a few pictures.

The butterfly hunting continues. It's been keeping them quite occupied.

Ben and Jason's Easter presents from Dad.

Scamp, the giant stuffed dog practices the piano. We make him wear the earphones, he sounds so bad.

So anyway, there's a few pictures and a little bit about what we're doing. I had thought that by the time I finished this there would be Easter eggs to take pictures of it, but apparently they will have to wait for another post. Last I checked my purple egg has only made it to hot pink! So I shall leave you in suspense until next time. I'm sure you await it eagerly. ;-) So I'm off to return Grandma's camera. I've been stealing some of her pictures again. See you later...

4/13/2011

Had a good piano class yesterday. We're starting to do scales and stuff, which might be fun. (might not too!) Mr. Hay said he was taking us on a little field trip... It consisted of going to his office and the choir room to look at the insides of all his pianos to see how the pedals worked. You know, all the little hammers and strings and stuff. It was pretty interesting. Grandma and the boys went to the Dollar General while waiting for us, and then they walked around in the college for a while... doing what I don't know. When we came out they were sitting on the grass reading books, and they had cold bottles of soda for us. =) We came home, and Grandma and I worked on the dress for a while. It's more complicated than we thought, but it's going to be nice. We worked on the bodice, which was kind of hard. Then we forgot that we were sewing the back of the bodice, and kind of panicked because it didn't look like it was going to fit my front. A few minutes later we realized it was the back piece, and thought well, duh...! Lol! Between the two of us we manage to have a few hilarious moments. I think it's going to fit fine though, especially if we have the back and front pieces in the right places!

The boys have been catching butterflies like crazy. Jason loves it. They have this little butterfly house thing, and butterfly nets. Jason is always going for the record, and cries and howls when we have to let them go.

We went to a 'faculty recital' or something like that at the college last night, which means that it was our piano teacher, and the guy who teaches choir. The choir guy had a pretty amazing voice, and of course our teacher did good. The first half was in German and French, which Sam says was boring. I have to agree I liked the English songs better. Prob'ly just because... you know... I could understand them better! Getting Ben and Jason to sit still was a major concern, but they did remarkably well. Of course, they were the only little kids and reaallly stuck out, which didn't help issues. But they did good. Some random stranger even told us so! Lol. It was an hour long, which was good, because at the end of an hour, they were ready to burst. We came home and let them have ice cream and watch the Pink Panther, since they behaved. Grandma and Sam and I finished watching The Ransom of Red Chief, which was an old movie with very strange and disturbing special effects. Lol. Dad came home sometime really late last night. I barely woke up when Grandma let him in. He didn't have a key to the deadbolt or something... So I haven't seen him yet, but we will tonight. Mom is visiting Aunt Shayna now! Hope she's having fun. =) Let's see what else?... Pretty much nothing. So far all we've done today is school. Have to go practice piano, and do my literature book. Oh ugh, right now I have to read some excerpt from Moby Dick, and it's oh so boring!!! :-(

4/12/2011

Grandma told them they could play outside, and they ended up in the mud.

It's been raining a lot! The boys and the dogs love the mud.

We made it to Tuesday! Challenges of the day will include getting to piano class on time, and convincing Ben and Jason to sit still at a concert they're having tonight at the college. It will be fairly interesting for Sam and I, especially since our teacher is playing the piano, but we know from prior experiences that the boys will be bored to death. Perhaps some notebooks, colored pencils, etc. are in order. The rabbit... um... wasn't doing well, which I rather suspected. They put it back where it came from, and I think it probably died, which is sad. It's better than it dying here, though. As it was Jason spent the first few hours mourning the fact that you can't keep wild rabbits. We would have had major issues if he knew it actually died, but he got over releasing it relatively quickly. I borrowed these pictures from Grandma's camera, since I used up any interesting ones I had. (Grandma's camera is notorious for having many, many pictures of her grandchildren on it.) At the top you can see Ben and Jason with their butterfly nets and cage. I don't know if they're migrating or what, but there's a remarkable number of monarch butterflies around at the moment. Oh dear, now Jason's whining about bonking his head. I never saw such a kid for getting hurt! Well, I'm off. Got to go practice piano, and pretty soon we'll have some lunch. See ya!

P.S. This blogger thing's clock is not right! Hmm, I wonder if it's set for my time zone. Interesting, I never thought of that before. Oh well...

Today's Monday! Ick! School didn't take too long though. I did have a math test. Ick again. I've just been working on cutting the dress out. Ben and Grandma are making cookies, I'm trying to listen to Pandora while I upload pics, Sam is reading one of the Redwall books that he is forever glued to, and Jason is being just a tad bit fussy and annoying. Now we're eating little chocolate Easter chickens from Aldi...

Poor thing! It seems to have been decapitated. I wonder who did that?! Oh well, I never have liked chickens very much...

4/10/2011

This is the fabric I picked! Of course, this is just a photo, and so that's not the exact shades of color, but it's pretty close. Today was our first whole day without Mom and Dad. We didn't get lost, and we weren't late for church, and everything has gone pretty smoothly so far. :-) We had lunch at Taco Bell, and we went to Wal-mart for fabric and Aldi for ice cream. (cookie dough!) =) Came home and watched Frontier House. It's an old PBS show about modern 21st century people who "go back in time" and live like pioneer settlers for four months. It's pretty interesting, and also hilarious at times, because sometimes 21st people don't mix so well with hundreds of years ago. For instance, one woman actually sat down and bawled because she couldn't wear makeup! ... Well, I'm off to find something to read or make or do! =) Maybe practice piano. That doesn't sound very fun, though. However, if my mother is reading, be assured that it will get done. :-)

4/09/2011

Grandma's here! She got here a little bit after lunch yesterday. She took us out to eat last night at a little Chinese buffet for Mom and Dad's anniversary (can you believe it, they're sweet 16! Grandma says they've certainly been kissed though.) Lol!

Argh! I'm angry with this. I've always been able to rotate pics the way I want to before! Argh. Moving on. Grandma and I are planning to sew a dress while she's here. Like it? I still need to get some fabric. I'm thinking probably something with a big pattern.

Grandma brought the best potato chips in the world! I don't know why they don't sell them everywhere, because they are the best kind. You can only get them around Central Illinois where Grandma lives.

I just finished this book! It was reaaallllyyy good! Maybe more on it later...

I've been trying to help Grandma find some fun places to go around here, but there's nothing! No state parks, no museums. Nothing. So we figure we are just going to have to create our own "attractions". Probably we will watch a movie, have popcorn, etc. tonight. Maybe make cookies or something. Tomorrow we'll go to church, of course. It will be funny for all of us kids to be there without Mom and Dad. Ooo, and I'll get my fabric at Wal-mart. I am relying very heavily on Grandma to tell me what on earth the pattern is talking about. (And to sew in the zipper! lol.) See ya!

4/07/2011

Today we had a test for piano class. Sam got a perfect score, and I am annoyed with myself, because I'm pretty sure I could have done the same, except I always get nervous. It's weird, because I like the teacher, and he's not at all intimidating, but I still get nervous when someone watches me. The sad thing is, I missed several notes that I had played perfect a hundred times before the test. Argh. Oh well, I'm still getting good grades. It's aggravating when you know you're capable of better, though.
We didn't do much painting, we were all kind of exhausted. I'm afraid Mom and I are coming down with whatever Sam had. I am not happy. I don't want to be sick when Grandma comes! Hopefully I will not get it as bad as him. Grandma's coming tomorrow. I'm so happy. =)
Not sure what all we're going to do while she's here, but we'll have fun. We still have to do school and all that junk ;-) but that's okay. The more we get done, the sooner comes summer! =)
They finally have the Andy Griffith show instant on Netflix! That's good, cause we'll have something to watch with Grandma. Maybe we'll find some cartoons and old movies besides that, too.
The dogs are kind of wound up. They haven't had much attention lately, and they hate it when we leave them all day to go paint. Every night when we come home, Piper throws a little fit, which consists of agitated leaps and bounds around us, punctuated by short yipes and howls to make her point. It's always cracked me up, ever since she was a little puppy, the way she reacts when you come home, or let her out of a pen or kennel. You'd think she'd be glad that you came and got her, but no! She puts up an enormous fuss to let you know how much she hated it. It's pretty funny. Sometimes she gets a bad attitude too, when she doesn't want to obey. She'll do what you say, but she'll make a loud aaa-woowoowoo noise to let you know she doesn't want to. Lol. I'm wondering how she'll react to Grandma taking Mom and Dad's place. She's kind of protective of her pack, and I expect she won't like it. That is, I'm sure she'll like Grandma, but she'll worry about Mom and Dad.
It's almost Friday peoples! That might be my favorite day of the whole week! See y'all! (Uh-oh, am I turning Southern?) jk.